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Re: BTRFS and debian

On 07/12/18 10:52, David Wright wrote:

On Mon 09 Jul 2018 at 20:33:00 (-0700), David Christensen wrote:

On 07/09/18 11:17, Ge wrote:

1. Whats the appropriate layout?
My current layout is:

LVM VG Laptop-vg LV root 16.9GB Linux device mapper (linear)
#1	16.9GB	f	btrfs	/


I use 16 GiB SSD's and/or 16 GiB USB flash drives for system drives.
I wipe and test them using the manufacturer's diagnostic tool before
installing Debian, or just wipe them with dd(1) if I do not have a
tool.  In the Debian Installer, I choose 'manual' for 'partitioning
method', create a new partition table (MBR), and create three
primary partitions:

1   ~1 GiB btrfs mounted at /boot
2   ~2 GiB LUKS (random key) with swap
3  ~10 GiB LUKS (passphrase) with btrfs mounted at /

10 GiB root is enough for single-user Xfce workstation (my bulk data
is on a file server).


I'm not an LVM user so I live with my partitioning for years.
I would opine that 10GiB is rather risky for a root partition
(with /home separate). My smallest root partition, on an old
laptop that I've been using since 2009, is 15GiB (74.5 GiB drive).

I'm not a DE user, which might reduce usage a little, but /usr
alone ranges from 8.4GiB (jessie on that laptop) to 10.2GiB
(wheezy, as it happens, on a desktop). That's without giving
any consideration to /var and /tmp.
I have been reading Evi Nemeth, et al, 2018, "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook", 5 e.. The authors make the point that cloud servers should be treated like cattle, not like pets -- e.g. when pets are sick, you expend resources trying to heal them; when cattle are sick, you shoot them [p. 272, fifth paragraph].
While a brutal analogy, it makes a point that can be applied to all computers -- devise strategies, invest in resources, and implement procedures that facilitate system roll-out, migration, and disaster recovery. This is a goal I have pursued over the years.
When "apt-get update" broke networking on my primary desktop instance about two months ago, it took me perhaps two hours to confirm that networking was broken, to search for and to not find an easy fix, to migrate my Thunderbird profile to another computer (all other data and configuration settings were on the file/CVS server or in the cloud), and to reconfigure the backup/ archive server. 



Should i make a different partition for /home/ ?


I don't -- I put my bulk data on a file server, including all e-mail
attachments.  My home directory is ~1 GB.


(If/when I want to travel with my laptop, I will need to figure out
how to set up a VPN to my file server.)


I would find that rather risky, so I have a "proper" separate,
encrypted /home that ranges from 50GiB (laptop) to ~400GiB
(desktops)—basically, the rest of the drive, though one laptop
gives a fair amount of space over to a W10 installation.
First, I will need to test how the applications I use react to VPN connections going up and down.
My file server is also a CVS server. This makes it easy to keep the same files on multiple computers, and to synchronize changes. (CVS can solve the three-way merge problem for text files. I need to be mindful when editing binary files.) 


David
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